Anton Vidokle was born in 1965 in Moscow. In 1979, he started studying painting at the studio of the Soviet-Armenian artist Konstantin Karamyan. In 1981 he immigrated with his parents to the United States and continued his studies at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Read MoreHe first encountered the philosophy of cosmism in 2012 in conversations with Boris Groys and Ilya Kabakov. Later, Vidokle traveled to Siberia, Kazakhstan, and other regions of the former USSR to research the traces left by the cosmist scientists, thinkers, and artists and has since completed seven short films based on writings by such cosmist authors as Nikolai Fedorov, Vasily Chekrygin, Valerian Muraviov, Aleksandr Svyatogor, and Vladimir Vernadsky. Vidokle has initiated the English translation and publication of historical texts as well as contemporary writing on this topic for e-flux journal. Jointly with Arseny Zhilyaev, Vidokle started the Institute of the Cosmos, an online publication and an open archive of research on this subject.
Vidokle's work has been presented in international exhibitions, festivals, and institutions including documenta 12, Venice Biennale, Shanghai Biennale, Berlinale, Locarno Film Festival, Gwangju Biennale, Taipei Biennale, Yokohama Triennale, the Centre Pompidou, Tate Modern, Tretyakov Gallery, MuHKA, Reina Sofia, MMCA Seoul, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), and The National Gallery in Washington DC.
Text courtesy Power Station of Art